A group of thin, wide-eyed, socially inept dreamers who have never let reality get in the way of their ideals. Their Guildhouse constantly needs rebuilding, as it frequently explodes. Thought of by pretty much everyone as a bunch of lunatics, they are nonetheless the Discworld's closest analogue to actual scientists. While the vast majority of alchemists are mindless experimenters who spend too much time around boiling mercury and unusual breeds of fungus, some, such as Cheery Littlebottom, have a solid base in chemistry, and have parlayed their skill into other fields, such as forensics.

Although they have yet to locate the Elixir of Life or the Philosopher's Stone, they did come close to discovering TNT, and, thanks to outside influence, inadvertently created a film industry in Moving Pictures

It's said that there are two major types of alchemists, the athletic and the intellectual. A good alchemist of the first sort was someone who could leap over the bench and be on the far side of a safely thick wall in three seconds, and a good alchemist of the second sort was someone who knew exactly when to do this.

The assassinations performed by the Assassins' Guild are not prosecuted by the police of the city.

The Assassins' Guild follows strict professional guidelines, with members behaving at all times in a gentlemanly manner. The guild is one of the richest in the city, and runs its own school, like the thieves. Unlike the thieves, however, the school is one of the most exclusive, and sons of the nobility - and now daughters - attend, though some are "excused stabbing". The school also educates scholarship boys - frequently from the Shades, and other poor areas of the city, these are the kind of people who are good at killing, Mr Teatime and Inigo Skinner being notable scholarship students in the guild school. To date, there are two people in Ankh-Morpork on whom the Guild will no longer accept contracts - Lord Vetinari and Samuel Vimes, Commander of the Watch. Vetinari is 'off the books' because he's both too important to the stability of the city and infinitely preferable to any potential successor, while Vimes simply has a reputation among the Guild for being more dangerous than the assassins that are sent after him.

The Ankh-Morpork Beggars' Guild is a guild for panhandlers, down-and-outs and borderline cases. It is the oldest, largest and (perhaps surprisingly) richest of the city's many guilds. Its name is something of a contradiction: a trading organisation for a group of people who, by definition, don't actually trade in anything, except perhaps in the feeling on the part of the donator that he or she has done a good deed, or, and this is far more frequent, the peace of mind of knowing that the beggar, now appeased, will not bother the donator any more. In this sense, the Beggars' Guild is something like the Thieves' Guild; far more of its income comes from not performing their stated trade than from performing it. If one has a social function to organise, a quick payment to the Beggars' Guild ensures that no malformed, malodorous, drooling, pustule-encrusted babblers will appear to ruin it. Indeed, not making such a donation is a surefire method of ensuring that just that sort will turn up.

The Beggars' Guild, like all the Ankh-Morpork guilds, has a very strict code of practice and enforced hierarchy. It enforces patrols and shifts among the beggars so that Beggary is properly distributed, presumably for maximum earnings. Anyone attempting to move above his position or perform his sanctioned role out of his assigned area or time period is harshly dealt with.

The precise assigned roles of beggars are many and varied and include (or have included) Mutterers, Babblers, Demanders of a Chip and People Who Call You "Jimmy".

Historically, beggars have their own god, named Jimi, of whom there is a famous statue in the guild headquarters.

In The Discworld Companion, Pratchett claimed that Foul Ol Ron and his Canting Crew were listed as a special Guild classification all their own, having previously referred to Ron as "a Mutterer in good standing" in Men at Arms; however, in The Art of Discworld and later novels he claims that they are not members of the Guild, which has too many rules for their tastes. In The Truth, it is explained that the Guild have not run the unlicenced Crew out of town because even beggars need to know there is someone worse off than them, as well as recognizing true craftsmanship when they see it.

The Guild is ruled by a council under the authority of a Chief Beggar, who is given the title of King or Queen. The current Head Beggar is named Queen Molly, though despite her senior position, she is still a beggar; dressed in a gown of velvet rags,[1] covered in warts (on warts) and running sores, and walking with a cane. By virtue of her position, the items she begs for are significant: in 'Jingo' she mentions begging for a banquet and 'a mansion for the night'. Nonetheless she is a shrewd political operator; because beggars exist everywhere and are usually ignored, they hear, see and smell everything in the city, making the inner circle of the Beggars' Guild one of Ankh-Morpork's main nerve centres for genuine information, a priceless political tool. Also, the guild has amassed a vast private fortune, which Queen Molly has wisely invested. In fact, the Beggars' Guild is the leaseholder for some of the poshest tenant houses in Ankh.

More of a club for stocky, aitch-dropping beer-swilling types, they are considered rather low on the ladder of magical ability and are scorned by wizards. They don't seem to care, and indeed appear to get a lot out of life. They are very popular among the masses, who consider sleight of hand far more interesting than actual magic.

Guild of Ecdysiasts, Nautchers, Cancanieres and Exponents of Exotic Dance[edit]

Motto: NVNQVAM VESTIMVS ("We Never Clothe"; this is similar to the Windmill Theatre, London, whose motto was "We Never Closed" but because it contained nude revue, it was also "We Never Clothed"). Their heraldic "shield" is nothing but a banner, quite small, proclaiming "Enleve" ("Take it off").

Headed by Miss Dixie "VaVa" Voom in Soul Music; she has retired, along with her partner, Edward the snake.

Clientele consists of humans (who consider women taking their clothes off for money to be acceptable, but women doing it for nothing immoral), trolls (who, because they believe they travel backwards in time, like to watch their women strip in reverse) but not dwarfs (who have no concept of such an idea, and indeed, no word at all for 'woman').

In Guards! Guards!, it had been outlawed by The Patrician the previous year. The Guild had taken a page from the Thieves' Guild and started selling 'fire insurance'; some particularly enterprising Guild members soon realized that this meant that they were effectively paid for each fire they prevented from occurring, and turned it into a protection racket for local shopkeepers.

Since the events of Feet of Clay, the Golems of the city have formed an unofficial fire service.

The Fools' Guild is a trading and training organisation for clowns, jesters and other practitioners of slapstick humour. It is located next door to the Guild of Assassins, for which it is often mistaken. This is in large part because, in contrast to the pleasant, airy environs of the Assassins' Guild, the grim premises of the Fools' Guild were originally the city's Plague House, and after that the monastery of the Brotherhood of the Infernal Zoth the Undying Renderer ("a contemplative order", according to their literature). The Fools' Guild have modified the frontage slightly with the addition of a giant Red Nose over the door and a canvas tent roof in winter. A number of "gags" designed by Bloody Stupid Johnson, including a custard pie-throwing machine and a giant daisy-shaped water cannon, were originally placed by the door also; however, due to a series of fatalities, they are no longer in use and are now in the Guild Museum alongside the original Dog With No Nose (it's shaggy), and the cranium of one of the Three Men Who Went Into A Pub.

The Guild was founded in 1567 as the Guild of Fools, Joculators, Minstrels, Buffoons and Mime Artists, but due to the peculiar predelictions of Lord Vetinari, the current ruler of the city, who hangs mimes upside down in his dungeons in full sight of a placard reading "LEARN THE WORDS", the mime element has been dropped.

As Terry Pratchett notes in The Art of Discworld, humour, as a profession, is hard, and nowhere is it harder than in the Fools' Guild. Its founder, Jean-Paul Pune (on the Disc, the inventor of the play on words that bears his name) understood that the heart of all comedy is pain, specifically others' pain. In recognition of this, Pune demanded a regimen of cold baths, wooden beds, bad food and self-flagellation to strengthen his pupils for the harshness of Foolery. Recent health and safety guidelines have ensured that more students survive to graduation, but school life remains as grim as the Guild's facade. Creativity and wit were the death of funniness, as far as Pune was concerned; progress through the Guild ranks was (and is) achieved through hours of rote memorization of the seventy-three approved subclasses of pun, the listed pratfalls and the accepted jokes, which must go through a twenty-year approval process before they are passed by the Council of Fun.

The Fools' Guild is not composed of people; it is composed of clowns. Upon the death of a clown, his face, dress, name and approved routines are passed on to another student, who will then assume that identity for the rest of his life ("His" being operative pronoun here, there are no women at the Fools' Guild, the Council having concluded that women have no sense of humour). People may come and go, but the clown lives forever. A clown's face is recorded in the Hall of Faces, a room of rack upon rack of blown eggshells, each painted with the features of a specific clown. For any clown to use another's face or name is punishable by death.

The Fools' Guild is governed by Dr. Whiteface, a grim, hatchet-faced, gimlet-eyed clown in white facepaint. Dr. Whiteface has been the head of the Guild for three centuries; of course, many men have stood behind his facepaint, but he has always been Dr. Whiteface. The head office of the Guild is known as The House of Mirth, a reference to the tragic Edith Wharton novel of the same name, and also to the line from Ecclesiastes from which the name was taken: "The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth," a line which drolly summarizes the guild's philosophy.

The Guild is immensely rich, and this is mainly because every king, duke and petty ruler from the Ramtops to Genua has a Fool in his court (excepting the King of Lancre, who was a Fool himself until he was crowned, and so far has not been shown with any Fool in his court), meaning that the Guild has access to vast amounts of sensitive information, which it scrupulously employs to its benefit. That said, because it contributes little of any practical value to the city, the Fools' Guild is not treated very seriously by its establishment. It should be noted that Lord Vetinari, while not being a king or duke and being definitely not a petty ruler, appears to be Fool-less.

Those who might question the Guild's authority, say, by telling unapproved jokes, unlicensed nose-honking and other forms of creativity, are paid a visit by the Jolly Good Pals, or Bloody Fools, the Guild's enforcers, who are fully ready to introduce one to the darker side of physical humour.

Guild headquarters is located across the street from the Alchemists' Guild. Anyone wondering why will be politely reminded as to just what the profession of the guild members is. Head is elected by random draw. Regulates cheating and swindling, not by banning them, but by determining exactly how heavily dice should be loaded, the precise value of cards which may be held up the sleeve and the exact amount of money one may take from a mark.

The basic principle of the Guild is the richer you are, the more likely you are to be innocent. As rich people are more valuable to society than poor people, this is considered a very agreeable form of justice.

Headed by Antimony Parker in Going Postal; however, they seem to have a new head every year.

Its main function is to protect its members from being robbed, which had become their principal occupation in recent years. They also serve as the advertisers of the civic charms of Ankh-Morpork to potential tourists. They hire gangs of burly men to patiently describe to outsiders that Ankh-Morpork is in fact clean, safe and lovely place to live.

More of a protection racket than a Guild, the Musicians' Guild demands high membership fees and performance rates for all members. Those who do not wish to be members are perfectly free to operate outside it, of course, but then, they are unlikely to do so for very long.

Headed by Mrs Rosemary "Rosie" Palm. "Mrs" is an honorific bestowed on those members of the Guild who rise to the ownership of their own premises. Her employees are known as her "daughters" (a reference to the famous euphemism "visiting Rosie Palm and her five daughters").

During the events of Night Watch, the Guild briefly employed an actual seamstress, who made quite a large sum of money darning the socks of men who made the same mistake she did.

Upon his initial arrival in the city, Carrot Ironfoundersson lodged at the Seamstresses' Guild, and even dated one of its members, all the while apparently oblivious to the nature of their profession.

Headed by J.H. "Flannelfoot" Boggis in Feet of Clay and subsequent novels.

Note: Some of the information repeated below was taken from the 2002 Discworld Diary, which had a thieves' guild theme, and has not been confirmed in any of the Discworld novels, although Pratchett has confirmed it is "official".

The Guild of Thieves, Cutpurses and Allied Trades is distinguished from thieves' guilds in other fantasy universes by being completely legal. The Thieves' Guild was established early in Lord Havelock Vetinari's rule of Ankh-Morpork. Lord Vetinari realised that what people crave is stability, and that, while it is impossible to stamp out crime altogether, it is possible to regulate it. The major gang leaders of the city were therefore called to the Patrician's Palace, where they agreed to be held responsible for ensuring a socially acceptable number of thefts. While they may have been insincere in this promise, they soon found the Patrician knew too much about them for reneging to be safe.

The Thieves' Guild, due to their new obligation to prevent unauthorised theft, quickly became the major law-enforcement body of the city. Accordingly, they moved into the long-vacated Ankh-Morpork Courthouse, though at the back they built a clay-brick "thieves kitchen", which painstakingly recreates a slum in the Shades, and which is used for training purposes. Its multitude of chimneys overshadow the marble façade of the original building. The Guild also undertakes field training exercises in the surrounding city streets where visitors may observe them in action; the fortunate may be invited to participate. As the Thieves' Guild grew, the Ankh-Morpork City Watch continued to slide even further into the pit of depression they would remain in until Carrot Ironfoundersson's arrival. In the year of the Engaging Sloth, the Guild had a General Strike, and the amount of crime doubled. One of Carrot's first acts as a watchman was arresting the head of the Thieves' Guild for being a thief. The man was outraged at being treated as a common criminal, and was quickly released by the Patrician.

While initially the main money-making venture of Thieves' Guild members remained theft, albeit under strict guidelines and leaving a receipt, more recent books show a system of "insurance", whereby people may pay a fee directly to the Guild and therefore become immune to robbery for a specified period. Unlicensed theft remains illegal, under both city and Guild law. Perpetrators consider themselves lucky if the revitalised Watch catches them, or they would usually suffer from the cruel punishment dealt out by the guild. The current head of the Guild is Josiah Herbert Boggis, of the firm J.H. "Flannelfoot" Boggis and Nephews, Bespoke Thieves. He is, in fact, also a member of the Specials, a civilian unit of the Watch called up during dire emergencies. Recently, the Thieves' Guild has introduced the practice of offering free gifts, such as matching crystal glasses, to those about to be mugged. However, these gifts are usually cheap and of poor quality.

While not as formalised as the Assassins' Guild Code of Conduct, Guild thieves are expected to work to certain standards. The main one is not to cause undue distress; a Guild burglar ransacking a house will be careful to place everything (apart from what he takes) back where he found it. Another rule is that a Guild member must look and sound the part. Guild thieves must wear appropriate clothing (in the case of burglars this means an eye mask, a flat cap, a stripy jumper and a bag labelled "SWAG"; other specialities have their own uniforms) and speak in thieves' cant, or at least rhyming slang. Members are required to carry their membership cards during all official activities (i.e. crimes). They tend to leave members of the Guild of Seamstresses alone, though this is more from self-preservation than professional courtesy. There is one golden, cardinal rule amongst the Guild thieves: always leave a receipt.

This guild is based on the British "union" for Police officers - The Police Federation (There are different ones for the different nations within Britain (England, Scotland, Ireland) but this is the main one.